{"id":873371,"date":"2026-09-05T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=873371"},"modified":"2026-09-04T17:45:44","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T15:45:44","slug":"the-153-year-old-town-in-south-africa-that-produced-2-1-million-carats-of-diamonds-and-then-collapsed-into-ruin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/873371\/the-153-year-old-town-in-south-africa-that-produced-2-1-million-carats-of-diamonds-and-then-collapsed-into-ruin\/","title":{"rendered":"The 153-year-old town in South Africa that produced 2.1 million carats of diamonds and then collapsed into ruin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The 153-year-old town of Lichtenburg in the North West, which produced 2.1 million carats of alluvial diamonds nearly 100 years ago, is still facing severe decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lichtenburg was founded in 1873 for agriculture and grew into a diamond-mining town in the 1920s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The town became a prominent part of South Africa\u2019s agricultural industry, producing maize, sunflower products, and meat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lichtenburg is located in the maize triangle, which is part of the country’s main maize-growing area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The area, which falls under the Ditsobotla Local Municipality, is also well known for its cement production and is home to four major cement producers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The town is the administrative centre of the Ditsobotla Local Municipality, which covers 6,500 square kilometres and includes 11 towns and villages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the town has made such valuable contributions to the country, it has faced serious issues with service delivery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2024, BusinessTech<\/a> reported that the town was deteriorating and that access to basic services such as water and electricity was lacking due to mismanagement and corruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, two years later, despite some progress, the town continues to face service delivery issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Issues of mismanagement surfaced as early as 2010 when the Auditor-General issued disclaimers regarding financial practices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The situation worsened in 2021 when Clover closed its flagship cheese factory in Lichtenburg, citing poor service delivery and ongoing problems with water supply, electricity, and road infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, President Cyril Ramaphosa described the town as having fallen under the grip of gangsterism, highlighting issues of corruption, capture, and looting by officials. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By this time, political factions had emerged, leading to the establishment of two competing leadership structures, which included two mayors and two municipal managers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The situation became so severe that the municipality was placed under provincial administration in 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this move had no impact on the region’s recovery efforts. The struggle between the two leadership factions continued into 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That year, frustrated residents, tired of the lack of change, shut down municipal offices and demanded new leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slow progress, but residents still cannot see it <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Ditsobotla Local Municipality Municipal Manager Olaotse Bojosinyane<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In September 2025, the municipality was placed under national administration, but efforts to resolve its issues remained ineffective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In April 2026, a parliamentary select committee raised concerns about the lack of support from national departments in the Ditsobotla Local Municipality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Committee noted that only the National Treasury and the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) are providing effective assistance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They urged the Minister of Cooperative Governance to adopt a “whole-of-government” approach to address critical challenges in water, sanitation, electricity, and infrastructure to prevent the municipality from collapsing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While some administrative progress has been made, such as stabilising leadership and improving council structures, service delivery remains inadequate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Residents continue to face significant issues, including insufficient water supply, sanitation problems, electricity outages, and poor road infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the municipality’s integrated resource plan adopted in June 2026, Municipal Manager Olaotse Bojosinyane stated that the region was facing multiple, entrenched failures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are currently grappling with a critical water security crisis, aged electricity networks operating at near-total capacity, and a road network in a state of advanced structural decay,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese are not merely technical failures; they represent a breakdown in the social contract with our community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor Witness Morutse stated that the council is collaborating with the required national interventions to support the municipality\u2019s financial recovery and restore effective governance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur mission is to move from a state of crisis to a state of resilience,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photos of Lichtenburg <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Lichtenburg is still battling service delivery issues, after being placed under national administration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":809984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"failed","_sma_x_autopost_error":"Instagram publishing failed: Instagram returned HTTP 400: Media ID is not available","_sma_x_post_id":"2096146578247405664","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2196469687840097","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[10395,21591,21023],"class_list":["post-873371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-cogta","tag-ditsobotla-local-municipality","tag-lichtenburg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873371"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":873936,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873371\/revisions\/873936"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}